Brothers
by aces
Summary: Darien, on the tenth anniversary of Kevin's death.


Darien visits his brother's grave on the tenth anniversary of Kevin's death...be warned, it's pretty bleak. Please tell me what you think when you finish reading this. Some of what Darien's thinking in this story is stuff that's been going through my mind for a few years now, but I think it's also appropriate for our fave invisible man. Lots of mention made to the pilot and to "Reunion," and I would just like to remind y'all once again that I do not own these characters, their stories, this show, any of that, and I make no profit off this story. Just read and review, please? Ta.

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Brothers

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Quoting the Quote Master: "A journalist named P. J. O'Rourke said that 'As we get older, the things which really matter are the dreadful things our parents said really matter: family and work and duty.' Crap like that." ~Darien Fawkes, "Reunion"

"Damn," Darien said, flopping to the ground suddenly when he couldn't hold himself up anymore. He set the bottle of whiskey down on the ground next to him, clinking it against the cold gravestone by which he'd toppled, causing the small amount of liquid left inside to slosh loudly in the silence. He stared blearily at the words and numbers carved on the stone. They wouldn't stay in focus; he squeezed his eyes shut to blot out the blurred world around him.

"Why'd you have to die?" he asked the stone suddenly, opening his eyes again. "Huh? I was the one who was supposed to die. I shoulda been rotting in a cell somewhere, or trying to get drunk or high, and you were supposed to be accepting a Nobel Prize for Sciences and Mathematics. You know? But instead you insisted on getting me out, and then you insisted on making sure I lived. I was supposed to get shot that day. Not you.

"Why'd you die?"

Kevin had died ten years ago exactly. Darien normally came to the grave on the anniversary of his brother's death, but normally he was also stone cold sober when he came by to sit and brood.

Not this time. He'd woken up that morning and found he couldn't face that grave without a stiff drink. But even drunk the thoughts were the same as when sober.

Darien remembered being the younger brother and hating it. Feeling trapped by association with his older brother. He remembered so much anger, so much frustration, always being compared to his older brother and disappointing when the comparison didn't match up to their expectations. To everyone's expectations.

He remembered running, every chance he got, distancing himself from his family as much as he could. He remembered reading about his brother in the papers all the time, winning some award or coming up with some grand new thing that would help save humanity from itself. He wondered if Kevin had ever seen Darien's name in the paper, under the police blotter. Before that AOL incident...

He never got to know Kevin. That was the thing that hurt the most these days. It wasn't as if they had that much difference in their ages, as if they had spent a lot of time apart as little kids. They'd always been stuck together back then, neither happy with the situation, but their aunt and uncle unable to see how much they despised each other. And Kevin and Darien had never gotten to know each other in all that enforced time spent together. Kevin was always doing some stupid experiment; Darien was always finding ways to get away; both were too busy to bother learning about each other.

Darien knew he and Kevin were a lot alike, knew they thought the same way, reacted the same way to many things. Ohhh how he knew it, knew they were more alike than either had ever wished to be. They couldn't help it, couldn't avoid the similarities. They were brothers.

But Darien had no idea what kind of music his brother had liked before he died, what books he had read in his free time--had he liked science-fiction? Or had that bored him, reminded him too much of his own work? Had he read the classics or philosophy, perhaps trying to find what had always interested and fascinated his younger brother Darien so much? He didn't know what foods Kevin had eaten or disliked (yeah, the baloney and peanut butter combo, but that was such a childish thing--what about when he grew up? Did he like Chinese? Mexican?), if he had been a morning person or couldn't be bothered to open his eyes without a strong cup of coffee, what he had found funny, if he had run a mile before work every morning or ever gotten drunk, what he had thought about God and death. None of those little details that other families seemed to know about each other, take for granted.

And now Darien didn't have the chance to find out any of those things. They'd drifted apart so many years ago, and every time they did meet, accidentally or otherwise, there was just disapproval on Kevin's side and rebellious anger on Darien's. No time for personal talk. They couldn't break down the wall, the barrier, that had grown between them.

Until that last time...

Right before he'd died.

They'd spent time together then. Sure, most of it was doing experiments with the gland in Darien's head, but they'd talked, they'd worked together. They'd argued like hell, too, but that was expected. No matter how alike they were, they could still never agree on everything. Anything, more like. Perhaps it was just plain old bull-headed stubbornness on both their parts, neither wanting to agree with the other.

They'd started getting to know each other that time. Kev had gotten his younger brother out of jail, had refused to let him rot in there. And they'd started learning about each other. Just a little bit, just a word or a look or a shared moment of triumph. A high five, a laugh, holding the bag of frozen vegetables over Darien's newly-black eye. They'd never had the chance before to spend so much time together without getting angry at themselves, at each other. There was a closeness there, a bond no one else could have shared with them.

Because they were brothers. It was as simple and as elusive as that. Impossible to explain, to describe. They were brothers. A relationship that somehow held them together; they could almost have been strangers otherwise, yet it was a stronger relationship than Darien had with most other people.

Brothers.

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Kevin fell back, blood splattering his lab coat. Darien rushed to him, held him in his arms, yelled at him to hang on, and watched him die.

They didn't get the chance to know each other.

Darien stood up and smashed the liquor bottle against the headstone, the liquid spilling, running down the cold stone, soaking into the ground. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream obscenities at the grave, at the sky, at himself, at the world around him. He wanted it all to end.

_I will never know my brother._

Miss him like hell.

Darien stared down at the grave, swaying, almost falling down again. "You weren't supposed to die," he told Kevin, his slurring audible even to his own ears, but he felt incapable of correcting it. "I was supposed to die. Remember? Why did you die?" He supported himself by leaning on the gravestone, tears falling from his eyes.

_You weren't supposed to die_, his thoughts echoed the words he'd just said. He seemed incapable of thinking anything else, the words reverberating in his mind over and over like an awful mantra. Over and over again. _You weren't supposed to die._

He remembered Arnaud tricking him into thinking Kevin was still alive, even though he'd seen his brother die, even though his brother had died in his very arms. He'd wanted so desperately to believe Kevin hadn't died, that he hadn't been the cause of Kevin's death, just when they were finally getting to know each other, could stand to be around each other long enough for the chance.

So much lost. He had so few good, happy memories of when they were kids. He remembered waking up on early Christmas mornings with Kevin every year, unable to wait to see the presents. He remembered going fishing with him, at the old cabin. He remembered coercing Kevin to even play basketball with him once, but that had ended with him accidentally breaking Kevin's glasses. Still, it'd been fun while it lasted.

Darien laughed drunkenly at the memory.

It had been so hard to talk to Kevin. To get him to listen. But then, Darien had never wanted to listen either. They could have said so much to each other. Could have learned so much about each other.

"Dammit!" Darien shouted at the world, at the grave, at everything, sliding down the gravestone, the tears still falling. "It's not fair..."

He hated regrets. And guilt. And grief. The anger had left him long ago, most of it anyway, but the regrets and guilt would never go away. So many opportunities lost, so many conversations never had, so many feelings left unarticulated, perhaps not even felt. So much left un-bloody-done. And he couldn't change that.

No wonder he'd really believed Kevin had come back, really hadn't died. He would give anything for just a few hours with his brother. He'd make himself speak, talk to Kevin, tell him what he felt, make himself listen when Kevin spoke. Something neither had worked up the courage to do when Kevin was still alive. Whenever he remembered that hope he'd had, for just a day or two, just a scant few hours, that Kevin really was alive and Darien could talk to his brother again, he felt he could kill Arnaud with his bare hands for doing that to him. It was almost as bad as killing Kevin in the first place. Killing him a second time.

"Sorry Kev," Darien whispered, his cheek scraping against the cold stone, the ache in his heart even colder. "I shoulda done a better job. Always was a screw-up..."

Someone came into his peripheral vision and he blinked up at the other person, trying to get him into focus. "What the hell do you want?" he asked tiredly, pushing himself up a bit.

"I came to take you home, you idiot," Hobbes told him without rancor, holding out an arm to help Darien up. "Why else do you think I'd be here?"

Darien blinked down at the shorter man fuzzily, leaning heavily against him as they stumbled away from Kevin's grave, out of the cemetery. "How'd you know where I was?"

"Are you kidding? You come here on this day every year. I know you, my friend. And Bobby Hobbes always knows where you are."

"Are you ever gonna give up on that third-person crap?" Darien asked.

"About the same time you give up missing your brother," Hobbes answered. "I have never seen you this drunk before, Fawkes, and I hope I never do again." He somehow managed to shove Darien into the passenger seat of his car and then walked around to the driver's side.

Darien stared at the windshield in front of him blankly, shivering in his t-shirt and thin jacket. Hobbes glanced at his partner covertly as he put the key in the ignition and started the car, but he kept his peace.

They drove to Darien's apartment in silence. Darien appeared to have fallen asleep; Hobbes had to rouse him to get out of the car and then had to go through the ordeal of helping the taller man into his apartment, dropping him on the bed. Darien was out of it, his eyes bloodshot and tired and sad. He didn't even seem aware he was home again.

"All right, I want you to stay here and sleep it off and don't you dare complain to me tomorrow about the hangover you're gonna have," Hobbes said, carelessly throwing a blanket over the still-clothed Darien. "It's your own damned fault." He started for the front door.

"Hey, Bobby," Darien called out--more of a mumble really. Hobbes turned back to his partner, who was sprawled across the bed like a limp puppet with his strings cut, a leg tossed here, an arm thrown over there, his eyes already closed.

"What is it Fawkes?" Hobbes asked.

"Thanks, man," Darien answered without opening his eyes, his words still a drunken slur. He was already half-asleep, his earlier pain and grief sliding again to the back of his mind where it spent most of its time these days, only coming out once a year on a certain day. "For...you know."

It had been ten years since Kevin died. Hobbes had never seen Darien drunk on that certain anniversary before. But he'd known this year would be different, had watched Darien get drunk by his brother's grave, and had come to take him home when it seemed time for him to let go again. Until next year, or until the next reminder of Kevin.

"Bobby Hobbes doesn't bail on his partner," Hobbes told the sleeping Darien and left.

This story is for my siblings, especially my brother...if you thought this was just maudlin self-pity, well...you're entitled to your opinion. If you're crying, then I apologize. And if you've got a brother or sister...just get to know them, eh?


End file.
